


The Fallen Jedi

by teaandchess



Series: The Path of the Force [2]
Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ben Solo Doesn't Turn to the Dark Side, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark Side Rey, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Slow Burn, Smuggler Ben Solo, look ma i wrote a star wars, revisionist history because I can
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:22:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23597545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teaandchess/pseuds/teaandchess
Summary: Weeks after the defeat of the First Order's Contingency plan, Ben Solo has found his way to the rebel base and reunited with Leia Organa. There, he begins training with the legendary Luke Skywalker and relearning the ways of the Force. Desperate for the control he so badly needs, Ben's brush with the Dark Side and the death of his father has left him bitter and withdrawn from those he loves. He knows that war is coming but he can't avoid the visions that consume him.Visions of a Sith determined to hunt him to the ends of the Galaxy. A woman who may mean more to him than he could have possibly believed.
Relationships: Finn/Rose Tico, Poe Dameron/Finn, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: The Path of the Force [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1698538
Comments: 18
Kudos: 80





	1. A master and an apprentice

Exegol crackled and hummed with an impatient horror that was born of the Dark Side. The terrain was abused by ricochets of lightning as its atmosphere reacted violently to the pressure that sustained the planet. Here, in the darkness, it was a violent and furious world that had no equal. Much like the Sith who had claimed it, the planet roiled and seemed to vibrate with the Dark Side. In the safety of the fortress, the scientists and faithful alike were scurrying about with vials and trinkets. Science mixed with magic here, with the Force screaming in agony around them, and it was a veritable hurricane of horror. 

Large clones, disfigured and ruined by time, swam in artificial amniotic fluid held by the large containers staggered about the cavern. The clones still glowed despite the poor light. They were fragments of an age past but not forgotten. In these pieces and results of the Sith technology, there was nothing here but pain and hate. From the shadows swung a large apparatus of steel bracing and hosing that swept across the room to rest just before a container filled with neon purple liquid. A figure held upright on the apparatus stirred and coughed up green phlegm before turning to the side. A gnarled hand, missing three main fingers, dipped into the goop and brought it close to the hood of the robes the figure wore.

“We will need to create a higher dosage of hallucinogen. We must see…” said an oily soft voice. Around the apparatus, acolytes held their breath. The figure took a deep, wheezing breath and choked on the air before speaking. “Oh, we must see. There is much we must know”

On her knees before the apparatus, Darth Ceria didn’t dare look up from the ground. She barely hid her revulsion at the sight of the creatures in the tubs around them. She could barely hide her fear.

But she managed all the same. 

“Rise, granddaughter and remove your hood. I would look at one of my blood.” The hooded figure shifted. “I would look at one of my blood and learn why she failed me.”

Darth Ceria stood and braced her feet, ready for a lightning strike. There was none. 

Darth Sidious had learned long ago with her that those punishments were best saved for when she least expected them. So he let her be. His milky eyes focussed on her face and his lips formed a twisted snarl. His voice, however, remained soft. 

It made his apprentice’s heart pound harder in her chest in her fear of him.

“Tell me, granddaughter, why you have returned home?” he asked. He looked at her, as if he could see the wounds and marks upon her body. “Bearing the wounds of war but none of the prizes. I am...disappointed.”

“I didn’t mean to disappoint you, my Master,” she said, eyes on the top of his hood to avoid looking into that ravaged face.

“I gave you an assignment. One I thought you could handle under the tutelage of Supreme Leader Snoke.” Together, they both looked at a nearby vat that contained a creature suspiciously like Snoke. Then their eyes met again “Or what remained of our original intentions with him. What was that assignment?”

“To hunt the Jedi to extinction. To complete the work of Darth Vader,” she said.

“And did you?” Darth Sidious’s voice had taken on an even softer tone.

She hesitated. “I slaughtered Jedi across the system. No matter where they hid, I found them.”

“I am sensing your distress though. You didn’t complete your mission, did you?” he asked. He was so calm. So very dangerous.

She dropped her chin and bowed her head. “I was close. The Skywalker bloodline is…”

“I am not here for your excuses, child.”

She rankled at being called that. The apparatus moved about and hovered closer to her, so that she could smell the rot and ruin of Darth Sidious. He smelt overly sweet, like perfume lain over a decaying carcass, and through her mask the odour was so strong it was choking. Her head remained bowed.

“Luke Skywalker nearly evaded us,” Darth Sidious explained. “By becoming one of the last of the Jedi. But in his arrogance, he sought to train a new generation.”

“A generation Snoke turned or slaughtered,” she filled in for him and she sensed his pleasure. She smiled beneath her half-mask, relieved to have pleased him.

“Those that escaped Snoke you were sent to destroy. Like a wolf hunting sheep.” Darth Sidious lifted his ruined hand toward her and crooked his remaining fingers. “Come closer, granddaughter.”

She took the hand in hers, wincing at the hot clamminess of his grip, and he pulled her so close that she could smell the ingested liquids that kept him alive. The mixture of bacta and Sith technology left a heady, hops-like smell to his breath and she began to breathe through her mouth to avoid inhaling it even further.

She felt him probing the edges of her mind and she let him in, hoping to feel that connection again. A connection that Ben Solo had destroyed weeks ago. It had taken her weeks to gain an audience with her grandfather, anxious weeks spent in a sort of limbo. Now that she was here, he was looking through her excuses. Sifting them about like seeds as he looked for the root of her failure.

The only thing that Darth Ceria knew was that she had failed. She had failed him.

He knew it as well.

That horrible hand slid down her throat and caressed her pulse point. “You did destroy almost all the Jedi. I am proud of you.”

She practically preened under his praise though she hid it with a demure shift of her eyelids downward. “Thank you, my Master.”

“You also met...the last…” His grip turned cruel and he twisted a hunk of her brown hair in his hand to draw her close. “You stupid girl.”

With the Force, he shoved her away to her knees. Darth Ceria went willingly and bowed her head, trembling in fear. She expected the coursing fire of lightning to singe her skin but it never came. Instead, he remained hovering over her.

“You were to bring me the head of Ben Solo,” Darth Sidious commented in his silken voice that now rasped with each press of the ventilator that was woven through his lungs. “The last of the Skywalker blood.”

“I would have only...I underestimated him. And his abilities.” She lifted her chin a little. “I had intelligence. He left the Jedi Order before completing his training. He should have not been….”

“I am not here to listen to your should-haves!” Darth Sidious’s voice roared through the air and she cowered again. “He should have been destroyed! First Snoke failed me and then you. I have clearly overestimated both of your abilities.”

“No,” she whispered, “no, you didn’t. I swear to you that you didn’t.”

“You could have taken him, defeated him?” Darth Sidious asked. “You know this?”

She nodded, so sure of her own power even against the last Skywalker. “I am sure that I could have defeated him, grandfather. He was within my grasp.”

“And yet here you are. Bowing to me. Begging for absolution.” Milky eyes fixed on again Darth Ceria. “Empty handed.”

He leaned forward as far as he could from his apparatus. “What is your excuse? What stilled your hand?”

“I did not let him live willingly.” She didn’t move from her position at his feet, her head bowed, but her voice was strong despite the fear that he would finally kill her. “I fought him, grandfather. I have never fought any like him before. He was powerful.”

“He’s a Skywalker. That isn’t so unusual,” Darth Sidious grumbled with a wave of that hand.

Darth Ceria lifted her head a little. “I have never felt another the way I felt him. It was like fighting myself,” she explained. She missed the way those strange eyes fixed upon her, the way his hands tightened into fists. 

“How interesting,” her grandfather murmured.

“When I killed his father...” 

“Which is what you should have done,” he interrupted.

She cleared her throat. “I have never felt anything like it before. He defeated me and I....”

“This matters to you,” Darth Sidious interrupted again. She kept her eyes on the ground.

“He went to the dark without looking back. It was…” She hesitated. It was so hard to describe. She had struggled for weeks to explain to herself what it was that had gone through her head in those moments when she had fought Ben Solo. When his grief at the loss of his father had overtaken him. Even in her training against the Jedi or against the Sith faithful, she had  _ never _ felt its equal before. 

“Go on,” her grandfather encouraged. “Tell me.”

“It was so beautiful,” she said softly before shaking herself a little. “So terrible. To watch such a man succumb to the Dark side that way was a thing of utter beauty.” 

Darth Sidious leaned forward in his chair. “He intrigues you.”

Darth Ceria shrugged. “As any dark sider might.”

Her grandfather shifted in the apparatus and it came forward toward her. Again that overpowering smell nearly made her choke. He considered her and she knew from experience he was drawing his own conclusions and quickly too. There was a long moment before he spoke again. “Do you think he could be turned?” he asked.

She could feel his excitement through the Force. There was nothing Darth Sidious liked more than a challenge, as she had learned. 

“I’m not sure. His conviction is strong. His love for his father, his mother, is a force to be reckoned with.” After a moment’s thought, she nodded and lifted her hand. “Yes. I believe he could be turned. But what could make him...I’m not so sure.”

“The death of his father?”

“No. If anything I think that strengthened him against me,” she whispered. “He has threads of the Dark Side within him, grandfather, but he shines with the Light. I’m not so sure it has been extinguished.”

After another long pause, Darth Sidious gave her a cunning smile that showed his rotted gums and stumps of teeth. “The death of something far more precious then.”

“The mother?” she guessed. 

Sidious leaned back. “Are you trying to guess my plans, granddaughter?”

“Never, my Master,” she said. “Only looking for my target.”

“Mm. The mother? Perhaps. Perhaps...” Those milky eyes fixed on her for a long moment. Then he gave her a rotted smile. “Perhaps not.” He raised a hand and the apparatus swung back a little, away from her. “Hunt him down again. Search the old Rebel bases for him. You will find them in the archives of the Empire. Search your feelings of where he would go.”

“And when I find him?” she whispered, praying for the order she craved. The apparatus began to carry Sidious back into the shadows, away from her. She raised her chin and watched him fade until only his voice remained, echoing in the chamber.

“He will join us or he will die.” 


	2. Hoth System

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Resistance is fighting to keep their heads as the First Order closes in on their old allies. On Hoth, a smuggler with intel meets with a Resistance fighter. The stormtroopers who arrive make the mistake of underestimating the power of that sole fighter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Empire Strikes Back was my favourite Star Wars movie as a kid mostly because of the TaunTauns. It will probably show the longer we stay on Hoth. I just loved them so much.

The battalion of stormtroopers were ill-fitted to land on as hostile a planet as Hoth but they had their orders. There had been rumours, whispers, that the Rebels were hiding out in the old bases and unfortunately that meant that the First Order had deployed as many battalions as they could spare. There had been deployed units across hundreds of systems, all searching for some sign of Resistance. But, as General Hux had predicted in his latest statement to the troops, there were those who would shelter them. The brunt of the search was taking place near the Core planets, where supplies would be plentiful. There had been rumours that Leia Organa had been sighted on Coruscant and Amilyn Holdo had recruiting on her own homeworld of Gatalenta. They were rumours but they mattered to General Hux. He paid his spy networks well and their intel was valuable. Even a rumour could have a spark of truth.

Only the scrapiest of the stormtroopers, those who could be spared or in many cases punished, were sent to the Outer Rim to delve deep into the old Rebel Bases. Which, when it came to Hoth, meant only ten stormtroopers. No one wanted to volunteer for that mission to that cold inhospitable planet. 

They’d landed at an old smuggling base and were rummaging about, looking for any signs of life. So far there had been nothing but long abandoned cartons and old stockpiles of supplies. The seemingly endless tunnels they’d found themselves in were winding and narrow, and soon enough they were getting lost. Lost and very, very cold.

“There’s no rebels down here,” muttered one. He was an older soldier, from the time of the Imperium, and he hated every second of being on Hoth. It brought back too many memories for an old soldier. He’d been complaining since they had arrived.

“There might be. Keep searching,” said the leader in charge. She shook her head. “There were signs of life according to our droid intel.”

“If I was a rebel, I’d have blasted out of here the moment any other ship set down,” argued the old stormtrooper. “What was old Phasma thinking, sending us here?”

“Probably thinking what we were thinking. Here’s a good place to dump a body or two,” grumbled another trooper. That earned him some mumbles of agreement but no one dared openly rebelled. If it got back to Phasma, their heads would be on platters and served to the Supreme Leader. No one wanted that. Their training told them that they definitely did not want that.

* * *

“There’s a charge for this.” Holding up the data record, Tri-Landa gave the man across from him a stern look. It was difficult to do in the hostile environment and the Ugnaught managed with a wrinkling of his prominent nose and pursing of his sizable lips. “So I want double.”

The man standing across from him sighed. His mouth was covered by thick material to protect him against the chill of the wind blowing but the sound was loud. “You get what I give you.”

Tri-Landa, a well established smuggler who still managed to run the old routes, shook his head. “Look, this mission is dangerous. I don’t mind helping out Resistance, you know that. I hate the First Order same as everyone but I’ve got kids to feed.” He handed over the data record. “That’s for the first bit of payment.”

The young human slid the record inside of his hooded coat lined with Wampa fur and adjusted the coat closer about his broad chest. “You don’t have kids, Tri-Landa.”

“I might some day and I got to think of them. I’ll get the word out but I need some promises.” 

“What kind of promises?” the muffled voice asked wearily. This was taking too long, they both knew that. They were both miserable standing out here in the blistering cold. The human’s TaunTaun was groaning and moaning in its annoyance at standing still for so long. The big beast began to low and paw with one massive hind leg. Its rider reached out to stroke down its furry neck, crooning to it.

“I want safe passage to the Core Planets when this all blows up,” the Ugnaught declared. “I can hide in Coruscant. Got some contacts there.”

“We need to make sure it's clear. You get across to the shipping lanes and let us know when it is clear to get to our next base. We call it even there.”

His tone brooked no argument but that didn’t stop the stubborn creature from trying anyway. “Or what?” Tri-Landa demanded.

“Or you give back what General Organa paid you.”

That made the smuggler pale. “I can’t do that. I already spent it. The Hutts are still after me for dumping their payload when the First Order got hold of my ship.”

“Then we have an understanding, don’t we? Get the intel when the First Order will be moving away from the route we need. Get it back to us. We clear?” 

Tri-Landa reached for the blaster strapped to his thigh but he was too slow. In a blur of movement, the man across from him reached down to his own thigh and pulled his blaster. He uncocked the safety and put it beneath Tri-Landa’s jaw in one fluid motion. Tri-Landa gasped in surprise but the man tapped it against his jaw. 

“We clear?” he asked calmly.

“Crystal clear and full,” Tri-Landa agreed.

“Good. She’ll be in touch. Get back to your ship before I decide we can use another smuggler.”

Tri-Landa was quick to move to his snowrunner just down the hill, hidden by the thick drifts of snow. He didn’t even look back as he left the younger man behind. In the grand scope of things, the old smuggler wasn’t trustworthy at all but there had been worse Ugnaughts to deal with. The Resistance had to take a chance on him. They wouldn’t last forever on Hoth.

Ben Solo reached up and shoved his googles up to his forehead and pulled his face covering down so he could breathe a little easier. It was hard to breathe in this extreme cold but the burn of it down his lungs was somehow refreshing as well. His dark hair was mussed about his face and his skin red from the wind, a sign how long he had been here in the cold and harsh sunlight. With a groan when the cold slapped against his bare skin, he reached for his binoculars and trained them on the distant figure on the snowrunner. Meeting Tri-Landa in the old smuggler spot yesterday had been a surprising stroke of luck and that the smuggler still respected the Solo name was a miracle in itself. Convincing him to come to this spot to barter hadn’t been easy but it was worth it. 

Even if Ben wasn’t so sure that his own feet or fingers would recover from this temperature drop. It was blistering cold on Hoth, always had been, but it was feeling like the temperature was getting lower and lower. This place, which was little more than an icy coffin for most, had been the perfect cover for the Resistance. Ben hadn’t been disappointed when he figured out where his mother was from the coded intel he’d received but he wished she’d chosen some place hot and more hospitable. The only reason he’d known his mother would come here was that old habits die hard. 

The First Order wasn’t quite so clever and it had been weeks of quiet.

Uneasy quiet but quiet nonetheless. 

Turning to the TaunTaun at his side, he soothed the beast with a gentle hand when it pawed at the ground again. “Easy, girl, easy,” he crooned. The creatures were semi-wild still and he found himself tapping into the Force more and more to try to tame them. This one was tricky to ride but strong, very strong. She was easily becoming a favourite. When she stopped shifting around, he put his pack back on the saddle and adjusted his mouth covering again. Ben put his foot in the stirrup and swung up, gathering the reins in his hand.

As he turned the TaunTaun about, something shone in the sky and began to descend in a rush. If he hadn’t been out here, he would have missed it. Something bright dropped out of the sky and landed in the distance with the thumping spray of a small meteorite. The vibration through the ground made the snow lizard grunt and try to leap forward, only to be reined in. Ben stared at the smoke rising in the distance for a long moment before reaching for his comm on his wrist. He twisted the dial while tightening his grip on his reins a little to keep the spooky TaunTaun still.

“Solo to Base.”

There was a crackle and an impatient, “What is it, Solo? You were due back an hour ago.”

“Run the radar three degrees south to west. Something just landed here.”

“Could be a meteor,” Poe Dameron responded on the other side.

Ben sighed. “Trust me, it probably isn’t.”

“We’ll send out a scouting party to that location. You risk exposing us being out too long. Get back here and report,” Poe ordered.

Ben was quiet for a moment, still staring at the smoke in the distance.

“Solo?” Poe asked.

“You didn’t say please,” Ben countered.

He heard the exasperation in Dameron’s voice the moment he spoke, “Please come back to base immediately. That’s an order.”

Pleased to have riled the other man, Ben silenced the comm and reached up to pull his goggles down over his eyes. The bright glare over the snow was blinding but there was still enough good old gear from the old days of the Rebellion that he could protect himself on these rides. Clipping his heels into the TaunTaun’s side, he turned it about and they headed up the deep snowy slope in the awkward two legged lope of the woolly beast. 

Ben found these rides both exhilarating and calming. After weeks of struggling through meditations, nothing cleared his head like a ride through the snow on one of these wild snow lizards. He focussed on its movement, on its breathing, and reached tentatively through the Force, more from curiosity than need. Sensing him, the TaunTaun obeyed him and lowered its head a little against the wind, no longer resisting the bit. It responded to the gentle nudges of the Force and they sprang up into a gallop. Ben almost smiled, something he rarely did these days.

There was a whooshing sound that caught Ben’s attention and he felt that voice in his head. A voice he had been ignoring for week’s now.

“ _ Where are you, Ben Solo? You can’t hide forever.” _

“Go away,” he whispered and he focussed his intent on the TaunTaun again. They picked up speed and entered a dead run toward the shelter of the distant entrance to Echo Base tunnels. The TaunTaun’s two hind legs churned powerfully through the snow and Ben pressed his masked face close to its hide. Trying to hide from the blistering wind and the spray of snow that soaked his clothing. 

Trying to outrun the pain.

* * *

The stormtroopers realized they may have found a smuggler’s hideout when they found a stack of old cartons and clothing in a corner. The leader checked a carton of rations and saw their manufactured dates. Surprisingly, they weren’t circa Empire but the past year. He held it up to the other troopers and they nodded. Someone was using this place. There were enough rations here to last a few weeks for many troops. On silent order from the leader, they staggered around the cavern, torches flared atop blasters as they searched the badly lit area for any more signs.

There was a buzzing sound and they all rounded with blasters ready as a door slid open. Seemingly oblivious, a tall man in a hood and mask came through, holding a bridle and pack in his hand. They might have even dismissed him if it wasn’t for the blasters strapped to his thighs. His attention wasn’t on them. In fact, he seemed to be far away in thought as he stared at a long cylinder in his other hand.

“Hands up!” shouted the leader and the nine others stepped out from behind the massive array of shipping cartons and ration containers.

The man froze immediately and put his hands up in the air, dropping the pack and bridle. Above his mask, his dark eyes flicked from stormtrooper to stormtrooper. Counting them.

“Didn’t expect to see you guys here,” he said. “First Order is getting better at this.”

“Must be a Resistance fighter,” said the eldest stormtrooper. “Look at him. He’s equipped for this planet. Too equipped.”

“Throw down the weapon,” barked the leader as she took the safety off her weapon. “And pull down your hood.”

He threw the cylinder to the nearest stormtrooper who gave it a curious look. “What is it?” the trooper asked.

“You don’t want to know,” the man said as he pulled his hood and facial covering down, revealing a scruffy face marred by a long black scar that went from above his right brow bone and down his cheek to his throat. He looked like a space pirate, the leader thought to herself. The fact that he smirked made her think that maybe he had read her mind. He turned those intense eyes on her. “So when’d you all arrive?”

“Shut up!” snarled another trooper. “Get your hands on your head.”

Slowly, he put his hands on his head. “Hey, take it easy,” he ordered them in a hypnotically soothing voice. One they struggled to ignore.

“State your name,” snapped the leader.

The man shrugged as he watched them pick up the strange weapon he’d been carrying. “Ben Solo.”

“Solo...Solo….I think I knew a Solo once,” muttered the old trooper to himself.

Ben had come back to this specific spot to check on supplies on his way back to base. It had been Poe’s idea, a way of tricking the First Order if they ever arrived, by putting out these caverns. Sometimes there were Wampas hiding in the tunnels so this had been a welcome change. Only this unit didn’t surprise Ben, not really. He had felt their presence and, in true Solo fashion, had gone in without any real plan. That the unit didn’t have many troopers meant it was a recon unit and he had been proven right so far about them. These ones didn’t seem like much of a threat. 

The one holding his lightsaber put it close to his face and squinted down the barrel. It was sheer luck he didn’t ignite it and just stab himself in the face.

Ben sighed and lowered his hands a little. “Now come on. Look....”

“Hey, put your hands up!” the stormtrooper shouted. 

Reluctantly, Ben put his hands in the air, his holsters still full, and turned toward them. “Look,” he said, “I really don’t want to have to do this.”

“Looks like a rebel to me,” said another stormtrooper. “Where are the others?”

“You really need to let me go,” Ben continued.

“Or what?” The stormtrooper gestured around the icy cavern. “You’re all alone here.”

“And there’s ten of us,” said another.

Ben closed his eyes. “Yeah, I know. It’s not enough.”

It was said with a hint of arrogance, the kind of confidence that made two stormtroopers step back. “What did he say his name was?” the stormtrooper asked just as Ben’s fingers opened.

Three troopers went flying backwards as the Force slammed into them with the weight of crushing gravity and Ben dropped to a knee as they opened fire. The lightsaber flew from the grip of the thrown stormtrooper to his hand and he swung it as it buzzed on with a whoosh, its blue light casting a ghastly shadow on his face. Ben was quick to rise, swirling the lightsaber in the air and sending a blaster bolt aimed for his heart careening into the helmet of the fourth trooper.

Five and six knelt to shoot and he charged forward, only to leap over them at the last moment and carve a line through their backs that sent them dead to their feet. Seven lost his head, while eight and nine went for their blasters too late as he sent the bolts back at them. He heard the snick of another blaster pistol being fired and raised his hand to stop it, only for the bolt to backfire and slam into the man, causing him to hit the wall with ricochet of the blast.

That Force push hadn’t come from him. It had come from someone else with just as much strength, if not more control. Ben sighed, flexing his fingers at his side and debated on just walking away. But that would end up in an argument he had no desire to get into right now. So instead he took in the damage around him, taking the moment to centre himself before he turned to face his uncle. 

Luke Skywalker’s disapproval was clear on his face even though the woolen mask covered half of it. “You’re showing off again,” Luke said, eyes shimmering with disdain as he pushed his hood back and unbuttoned his mouth covering. His bearded chin was frosted with snow and ice, and in his other hand he held a bridle. Ben realized that his uncle must have been out riding as well. They likely had had the same idea about finding peace. 

Ben let the lightsaber zip off and grinned as he looked at the absolute mess he had created. “Better them than me,” he said.

“That’s not the…”

“Way of the Jedi. Save the lecture, I’ve heard it before,” Ben said. “Who sent you to get me?”

“I was on patrol when I got the word you were headed back. Your mother wants us back for a briefing. There’s warnings that a First Order cruiser is only several light-years from Hoth. These troopers might be the beginning,” Luke said as he picked his way through the bodies and came to stand before his taller nephew. “And by killing these ones you likely just sent out a massive warning that we’re here, didn’t you? If they don’t return...”

Ben shrugged. “They already knew we were here.” He picked up a packet of rations. “The manufactured dates are a giveaway you know.” He tossed it down with disgust. “Just what we need. Troopers showing up because of food.”

“The stormtroopers don’t worry me,” Luke said as he adjusted his hood close over his face against the chill. “You felt it, just as I did. Whatever it was that landed on this plant an hour ago isn’t just stormtroopers.”

“I know.”

“Then you know what’s coming.”

Ben hissed in a breath and let it out in a stream that puffed like smoke in the frozen cavern. “I felt something different than a First Order platoon.”

Luke’s one eyebrow lifted. “Oh?”

“I felt...confusion. Anger. Guilt. Hate.” Ben looked around and up. “So much anger.”

Wisely, his uncle didn’t comment, simply turned away to recover Ben’s sack from the ground. But Ben knew what he had felt. He knew who he had felt.

He just didn’t know what he would do if he came face to face with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd write a whole novel about Ben Solo riding a variety of creatures if I could. I might. Who can tell me no?


	3. Echo Base

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben finds himself having to explain a memory he doesn't want to relive to his mother and uncle as the Resistance makes plans to move against the First Order. Meanwhile, Hux gets an order he has wanted for years.

Echo Base hadn’t changed in the years of its abandonment. Or what Leia had claimed was abandonment. It was strangely adequate and stocked up for a place that had seen better years. The equipment was relatively new, the icy tunnels were safe and supported, and there were enough rations for weeks. If Ben hadn’t known better, he would have thought his mother had been having visions of a future where the base would be needed. He couldn’t complain. As horrible as rations were, he wasn’t ready to go hungry quite yet.

Lost in thought, he didn’t feel them coming. He was following quietly behind his uncle when he was rammed from both sides. Ben jolted out of his thoughts and looked left, then right to see that he was jammed between the ever-together Poe and Finn, he frowned at them each in turn. “What?” he grumbled.

“Wanted to see how you were doing,” Finn offered.

Ben doubted very much that Finn was interested in him. No. Finn was completely  _ fascinated _ by Luke Skywalker and was eager to follow the Jedi Master about like an eager puppy everywhere he went. “ _ You’re...you’re Luke Skywalker,” he had said with utter reverence when they had met.  _ Luke, for his part, found it amusing but said nothing to stop him. Finn didn’t say exactly what he wanted from Luke nor did Luke give a hint that he knew, but Ben suspected it had something to do with the legends told about Master Skywalker. Legends of the ancient use of the Force, judging by how Finn would still grill Ben sometimes about Force sensitivity.

Ben hoped he never reached such legendary status.

“You’ve been out riding that TaunTaun a long time. You left last night and came back this morning,” Poe said, adjusted his headset over his muffler-covered ears. He tapped Ben’s commlink on his wrist. “You weren’t great at getting back to us either.”

“I had other things on my mind,” Ben said. “I don’t want to talk about it.

Poe made a face but said nothing as he jolted Finn and headed off into the war room. Luke glanced at Ben but as usual said nothing before they too entered the war room. Finn and Poe gave each other a quiet handshake and when they separated Poe stood respectfully behind Ackbar and Finn stood with the other junior soldiers in a semicircle. Ben noticed that they gave each other encouraging smiles. He was almost a little jealous about their easy connection. No one was ever that friendly to him, despite his heritage. Maybe because of it. 

Ben Solo wasn’t stupid. He knew there were plenty of stories about him. Both as a son of the General and a smuggler, of being the nephew of the most legendary Jedi in their generation. But those stories kept him separate and alone from them. The way he claimed to like it. 

He was finding a seat when Luke nudged him and nodded to where Finn was talking easily to an engineer.

“Kid’s gonna be my shadow till we get off this base,” Luke mumbled to his nephew as he stripped out of his riding coat to take a seat. Not having a good answer to that, Ben unbuttoned his own heavy coat and tossed it over a chair, leaving him in his old leather jacket and a thermal black shirt to ward off the chill. He was willing to stomach the cold if it meant not smelling like a TaunTaun’s musky odor for a while.

“Attention!” snapped a commander nearby and Ben looked up to see a purple haired woman in a thick Wampa fur coat arriving through the west corridor. She seemed to glide as she walked and there was an air of regality about her. A familiar regality. He frowned. Something about her tickled his memory.

“Admiral Holdo,” saluted two commanders. She nodded to them and took a tablet from Kaydel. They began to speak in soft, earnest tones and Ben rolled his eyes. Apparently they were waiting on his mother.

Then from the rear eastern quarter, Leia Organa came through. Ben hadn’t spoken to his mother in weeks now, finding ways to avoid her. She had kept leaving him requests but Ben kept riding out into the snow on his TaunTauns with the excuse that he needed to spend time taming them. No one had an argument for that since Ben was one of the few who could work with the semi-feral creatures without being bucked off. Luke hadn’t commented on this except to say that they both needed their space perhaps and he was in no place to push them. He, too, was grieving. 

The change in his mother was what nearly devastated Ben and made a knot of guilt burrow deep in his stomach. Her face seemed a little more grey, her eyes a little more sad, and she wore a dark brown dress with her hair in traditional mourning braids about her head. She walked the line and every step she took seemed to be soaked in grief and pain. She kept rubbing her hands together against the cold and as she entered the room she made sure to check on each nearby commander by name.

His mother. Ever the diplomat.

When she came to where Luke had risen, she hesitated for a long moment, staring into her brother’s eyes before throwing her arms about him. The entire command watched this interaction curiously as Luke returned the hug. Ben sensed the Force connection between them strengthening from the contact. He looked away and caught Finn’s curious stare, then Poe’s sympathetic smile. Finn even moved to sit on Ben’s other side, folding his arms across his chest and subtly nudging him. It was too much focus in his direction and he dropped his eyes to the floor, waiting for the twins to finish their hushed conversation. 

Suddenly he wished he was out on the cold plains by himself again.

“Ben.” His mother’s voice pulled him from his thoughts. When their eyes met, that familiar warmth of her she exuded was a balm to something dark inside of him. As if sensing his unease, Leia reached out to touch his arm before she smiled at him. “Thank you for coming to this.”

He nodded and she moved on to stand in the centre of the room, a petite figure who commanded the respect of everyone.

“We lost many good fighters in our last skirmish with the First Order,” she declared.

“Kind of a downer,” Finn muttered beside Ben. The older man gave him a wry look before leaning back a bit.

“And we’ve gained new fighters as well,” she continued, gesturing toward a team of fifty Naboo freedom fighters. “We’re honoured.”

They bowed to her. 

“Why doesn’t she say anything about Skywalker?” Finn whispered to Ben. “I mean, we’ve got a Jedi now!”

“Because that would show off and my mother doesn’t do that,” Ben whispered back.

“Admiral Holdo? The briefing please,” Leia finished, holding out her hand. She retreated and to Ben’s surprise she took a seat between him and Luke, forcing Ben to move over a little. He didn’t get far before her hand clamped down on his elbow and brought him down. As Holdo arranged her notes, Leia leaned close to Ben and her grip tightened on his arm. “Don’t think for a second you’re avoiding me anymore.”

Ben went a bit paler and Luke snorted in amusement.

* * *

The briefing wasn’t much. There were signs of First Order branching out further, tightening their choke hold on Mid-Rim planets and reports from the Resistance spread out across the Core planets that needed to be deciphered. Volunteers were taken with Poe Dameron leading the way to take a unit out to the next targeted base in the Mid Rim. Holdo and Leia handled it easily with Ackbar making some comments. In the end, the only people without missions were Finn, Ben, and Luke. It was a curious that they were off the hook, except for Holdo looking at Ben and saying “We’ll need more recon intel from the outer posts.”

He took that as a sign that he’d be spending more time on the snow and he nodded. Leia hadn’t contradicted Holdo at all but he’d noticed her eyes darting to Luke. It was clear she had a plan for him and that knot in Ben’s stomach tightened. When the briefing dissolved into groups discussing their missions, he saw his chance for escape.

Quietly, Ben started to edge to the back of the group as Finn left to congratulate Poe on the chance to lead a new mission. Luke moved but Ben was faster than his uncle. He was almost at the eastern door when a small hand wrapped about his elbow. He jerked but the hold was firm, forcing him to look down into his mother’s face. Her dark eyes pierced him.

“Come on,” Leia said. “I need a moment with you.”

Ben stiffened under her touch and looked about to see that Finn had once again cornered Luke. There’d be no saving him today. All he could do was nod and gesture for her to walk ahead of him. He followed his mother through the hall and when they passed through one long corridor, she paused. Her eyes grew a little misty and Ben realized she was reliving a moment. Tempted as he was to test her, to see what the memory was, he wisely kept to himself. It would be rude to touch a Force-sensitive that way. Leia then led him on to her quarters, a smaller area than he expected, and when they were safe in the sterile whites and greys of the hollow room, she gestured for him to sit at the table in the middle of the room where her plans and maps were spread out. When he stayed standing, she rolled her eyes and hurriedly took a tablet, tossing it onto her cot.

Leia took a moment to compose herself before turning around and folding her arms across her chest. “You’ve been riding a lot,” she said.

The offhand comment made him stare at her. “Uh, I suppose.”

“You smell like a TaunTaun,” she continued. “And considering how badly they smell, is that really worth avoiding your mother?”

Ben sighed. “Mom, look...”

“When you left Yavin IV, I believe that I knew why. I accepted it, understood you, or at least I thought I did. You loved your father deeply. Losing him was as hard for you as it was for me. I could feel your grief, Ben,” she said, her voice softening. She unfolded her arms and put a hand on the back of a chair to support herself. “I know that you saw something in the Contingency and you needed help coping with that. But you ran from us. Your uncles went looking for you because we knew you’d need help. Chewie was inconsolable until he found you and Luke came across the stars to help me help you.” She reached out and touched his cheek with the back of her hand. “Let us help you.”

Before Ben could answer, the door to the quarters hissed open and Luke slipped through. He looked suitably harassed and didn’t apologize for interrupting. “That kid,” he said, “is going to kill me with his questions.”

“Finn is fascinated by the Jedi,” Leia offered with a raised brow. “Why don’t you take him under your wing? You could use the practice of explaining Jedi to someone.”

“He wants something but he won’t come out and say it. I hate that,” Luke grumbled. He adjusted his robe’s sleeves up to his elbows, exposing his skeletal robotic hand, and took a seat at Leia’s table. “Where were you at anyway?”

“Mom was guilting me about leaving,” Ben mumbled. 

Leia took a deep breath but her brother was first to speak.

“Good. I didn’t miss much,” Luke said and he reached down to his belt. His eyes snapped to his nephew and held his stare. He unclipped his lightsaber and held it meaningfully up between them. “This is a sacred weapon and not a toy.”

“Why is he saying that?” Leia asked, eyes narrowing at her son.

Ben sighed but Luke wasn’t through taking over. “Your son was in the passage several miles out and took care of a battalion of guerilla stormtroopers. By himself.”

Leia’s dark eyes flickered with annoyance and Ben almost shrank at the look in them. “Ben, you could have been killed.”

“Or they could have found you all. Thought I was doing something right for a change,” Ben said as he took a seat across from Luke and his mother sat down as well. “Any reason why you two are deciding to gang up on me now?” 

“I came from my hermitage to find my nephew had taken off. Leaving his mother worried and desperate.” Luke shifted a little. “If it wasn’t for Chewie’s instincts, you might have stayed hidden forever.”

“Thanks, Uncle Chewie,” Ben muttered to the absent Wookie.

“I’m sure to tell him your thanks when he gets back from his run up to the North plain,” Leia said. She lifted a shaking hand to her head and sighed. “Ben, what happened? Tell us.”

“It isn’t worth telling. He died.”

Leia’s lips formed a thin line. “Ben, please. Hiding this from us will help no one. You need us and we need you. We need to work together.”

“Listen to your mother, kid. You know she won’t let it go,” Luke said wryly and Leia glared at her brother next.

Ben didn’t want to tell her, didn’t want to relive the moments of his father’s death. But at the piercing and knowing look of his uncle, he knew that he didn’t have a choice. Luke would find a way of getting it out of him if his sister didn’t. It was, Ben supposed, better coming from him than from anyone else. The only other source might be Chewie but the Wookie himself was grieving hard for the loss of his best friend. Chewie, like Ben, would never tell them anything and he was nearly impossible to manipulate. So it was up to Ben to be the bearer of bad news and he hated himself for having to do this.

Tentatively, Ben began to speak, keeping his tone cold and impersonal.

_...Darth Ceria hissed and raised the red lightsaber high over her head... _

_...“Ben, no!” Han’s voice tore through the air … _

_...Darth Ceria whipped about, staring at the man trying to run across the platform toward them, a Wookie at his side... _

_...She sneered and turned back to Ben, only to find him with a blaster pointed at her... _

_ ….he had to trust his instincts… _

_...He squeezed the trigger and it fired as he knew it would, careening toward the Sith... _

_...Darth Ceria lifted her hand and carelessly gestured, flinging the bolt away... _

_...Into Han Solo’s chest and through the other side... _

_....“Dad!” Ben screamed. “No!”... _

_...Chewie caught his father as Han fell to his knees... _

_...“Dad!”... _

_...A Wookie’s roar of rage… _

_...“Chewie! Get him aboard the Falcon! Try to save him!”... _

_...With his thumb, he triggered the lightsaber and it shone to life... _

Luke and Leia both were quiet, staring at him as he told them in a clipped way everything that had happened. Ben’s lower lip trembled as he fought the urge to cry for his own loss and he didn’t dare sob before his mother. Or his uncle. He was sure his uncle wouldn’t understand grief like that anyway, he thought bitterly.  _ Jedi were above such emotion, _ a sneaky dark voice whispered in his head. Forcing his eyes up, Ben met Leia’s stricken eyes for just a moment before tearing his gaze away. After a long moment and in stunning harmony, both brother and sister leaned forward and reached out to put their hands on Ben’s own clasped hands.

“That wasn’t your fault,” Luke said insightfully and Ben stiffened, pulling his hands from their grips. “Ben, that was an accident.”

“Not so sure it was.” His fists tightened on the table and he stared at the table, not seeing it at all. All he could see was his father’s face as that bolt tore through him. All he could feel was pain. He ground out between his teeth, “I trusted the Force and it betrayed me.”

“The Force doesn’t work like that,” Luke corrected.

Ben slammed his fist into the table and it made them both jump. The twins gave each other a startled look before focussing on him. “It has to be that.”

“Because the alternative is that you chose the darkness?” Luke asked.

Ben flinched.

“Ben, you are not of the Dark side, you know that,” Leia whispered, reaching for his hand again. When he drew his hand out of her grip, she too flinched.

“I’m not sure I know that,” he said. “Sometimes I don’t know what to believe.”

“Ben…”

“This Sith,” Luke interrupted. “Who was she?”

“I don’t know. She isn’t like the Knights of Ren we faced or any other Dark sider. She’s powerful, very powerful,” Ben said, glad for the distraction. Even if the distraction was the very thing that had been plaguing him for weeks now. “Every move I made, she countered. As if she were in my head.”

Luke frowned. “You defeated her though, didn’t you?”

Ben shrugged and reached up to wipe at his tired face. “Barely.”

“How did that happen?” Leia asked. “You’ve not trained in years.”

“I felt as if I were in her head as much as she was in mine,” Ben explained. “It became second nature to fight her. Like fighting...like fighting....”

“A reflection,” Luke whispered and Ben caught his eye.

“What happened after Han...after she…” Leia couldn’t bring herself to finish the statement and Ben noticed how her hand went to the pocket of her dress, clutching something within it. He could hear the jangle of metal.

“The world went dark around me. I lost control and I almost killed her. I heard voices telling me to kill her, to let the dark side just...flow,” Ben said, eyes on the table between himself and the Skywalker twins. He took a deep, shaking breath before his dark eyes flicked up to his mother’s face. “Tell me how that wasn’t the dark speaking. If I had been a Jedi, I would have been able to defeat her and not feel this...this anger. I saw nothing but this need to kill her.”

“Ben,” Luke began. “Your training saved you. After everything, I’m glad it did. But I don’t regret sending you home. ”

“Mistakes happen,” Leia whispered but Luke leaned forward.

“We can’t go back and change the past. I’m not sure I want to. You needed your father. If I had trained you to completion, we would have lost you to the Dark Side.”

“Instead I just lost my father. And I’m supposed to thank you for it?” Ben spat.

That caused his uncle to take a deep breath and sit back. “No. No, you’re not.”

“So what are you two planning?” Ben asked, hoping to change the subject away from the Dark Side. Away from his father. But his mother waved a dismissive hand and shook her head.

“Nothing.”

“I don’t believe you.” 

She only smiled at him and shook her head.

“R-2?” Luke called out and from the corner of Leia’s rooms, hidden beneath a fresher sink, came the small astro droid. It was like a reminder of years past and Ben stared in surprise at the droid. R-2 let out an excited whistle at the sight of Ben. R-2 rolled to Luke’s side and Luke laid his artificial hand against the droid’s dome. His blue eyes fixed on Ben again. “We want you to work with me on a training program. R-2 has my old plans still stored in his hard drive.”

The droid whistled his approval and Ben sighed. “I don’t want to be trained,” he protested.

“Then you wouldn’t be using the Force still,” Luke snapped. “Ben, I know you’ve been keeping this to yourself but you’re old enough now to control your own destiny. Let me train you, complete your training. So you can be ready for what is ahead.”

Ben shot his uncle a suspicious look. “And what is ahead?”

Luke looked away from him. “Something you’re not ready for if you keep going down this path.”

* * *

Hux stared down at the construction site in his hangar. They were currently working on a new model AT-TE, based on the old 636 that would replace Imperium level designs. His hope was that they would be enough for the Supreme Leader to truly notice his worth. Of which, Hux was certain, he had plenty. One did not commit patricide without knowing your worth, after all.

“General Hux.”

Phasma’s voice slipped into his thoughts on his father and he looked over his shoulder at her. “Ah. Captain Phasma. So good of you to join me. What do you think?” He waved his hand over the construction site. “The future.”

“Indeed.” 

“Something troubling you, Captain?” he asked when he noticed the clipped edges of her tone.

“We have lost contact with several battalions. All in the Outer Rim.”

“Resistance fighters, I assume. Which systems?” Hux asked as he reached for his tablet. She recited them off of memory and he nodded. “We will send out droid spies then. We can’t risk losing more stormtroopers on a goose-chase.”

“Of course, General.” She snapped her heels together and headed off down the hall. Hux watched her silver armour glow in the harsh lighting of the Supremacy corridor and then turned his attention back to the construction site.

Only to come face to face with a gigantic holo of his Supreme Leader. Hux recoiled with a yelp and dropped to a knee. “Supreme Leader. I am honoured.”

“You have been avoiding me, General Hux,” Snoke said in his smooth, eerily calm voice. “Why is that?”

“I have been quite busy, Supreme Leader, and I am pleased to show you your newest designs that will be…”

Snoke had no tolerance for that. “Has there been any word from the Knights of Ren?”

“Word, Supreme Leader?” Hux kept his eyes trained on Snoke’s massive forehead to avoid looking into those beady, knowing eyes. “What word is that?”

A crunching pain sliced through him and he chortled for breath, shocked by the agony ripping into his bowels. He had to clench his thighs together to keep from embarrassing himself before his Master and he reluctantly bowed his head. “The word,” Snoke said, “of what has happened to our dear Lady Ceria.”

“There were no beacons to follow and no rumours. She has, Supreme Leader, completely disappeared.”

“Has she indeed.” Snoke’s holo twisted as if he were deep in thought before he repeated, “Has she indeed.”

“May I speak freely?” Hux ventured nervously and Snoke waved a crackling hand. Hux knew he could be risking everything in this but he had to know. “She is your apprentice. Strong with the Force, so you’ve told me. Could she not...contact you?”

“Ah, a wise observation,” Snoke murmured and he leaned back, closing his eyes. “No, General Hux. I cannot sense her anywhere. A troubling development.”

“How may I serve you best then?”

“What happened on the Contingency must have sent her off like a wild bantha. I would know what happened. Were any left alive to tell us?” Snoke asked in that calm way of his.

“No, Supreme Leader.” Hux ran the possibilities through his head. “No, none were left alive. We escaped the Contingency before we could pull the recordings of the hallways.”

“Interesting.” Snoke closed his eyes. “Very well. Send out our best bounty hunters to the Reaches. Find her. Bring her to me. She must explain herself to me.”

“What if they cannot take her alive?” Hux asked, barely hiding the bloodlust already rising. He knew the perfect bounty hunters to use. Bazine Netal, for a start. “She is a powerful woman.”

“I want her alive,” Snoke snapped but then he waved his hand. “But if it must be done, execute her and bring her body to me. Understood?”

Hux bowed his head. “As you wish, my Lord.”

Snoke’s crackling image disappeared, leaving Hux alone. The ginger-haired man grinned and looked out the hangar bay. Only this time, he was seeing nothing of it. He wanted to see that Sith broken for her sins against him, for her obstinate behaviour toward the sacred duty of the First Order. How dare she not return to the very Order that had given her such power, such prestige? No. Hux had no intention of bringing her in alive. He reached for his comm and waited for his next in command to respond. It was with great and almost perverse pleasure that he drawled into the comm,

“Bring me five of our best bounty hunters. I have a mission for them.”


	4. This wasn't in the Manual

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke begins Ben's training in the hostile environment of Hoth, determined to make his nephew ready for what is to come. But Darth Ceria has landed and she is not about to be put off from her quarry

_ “Focus.” _

Ben heard his uncle’s voice through the strain of his concentration but he didn’t dare look around. He put out another foot and tentatively stepped down. When it remained stable beneath him, he sighed in relief.

“ _ Focus _ ,” Luke said. “Reach out with your feelings and  _ focus.” _

They’d found this thin patch of ice surrounded by a rock outcrop several miles away from Echo Base. The ice had flowing water beneath, a pond caused by the thermals deep beneath the planetary surface. Luke had been delighted the moment it became clear what he could use it for. Ben had been less enthused when he figured out his uncle’s intentions. Hoth made for a hostile training ground, after all, and his uncle had gone looking for spots that were the most hostile as if to prove a point to Ben. What that point was he wasn’t exactly specific and his nephew didn’t have the gall to ask him quite yet.

Ben closed his eyes and slowly put another foot out. The ice beneath his boot cracked and there was a loud knocking sound.

“Focus on letting the Force lift you. You are  _ weightless _ within the grip of the Force.”

Ben put more weight down and heard a loud banging sound like a bell being struck. Alarmed, he withdrew his foot and opened his eyes. He looked across the ice at his uncle. “You know,” he told Master Skywalker, “if I’m dead from hypothermia my mom’s gonna be real angry with you.”

“Yeah but she’ll get over it,” Luke deadpanned from where he sat atop a mound of ice blocks that just hours ago he had had Ben stack through his meditation. The tent they had erected guarded him from the bitter wind. Nearby, their tethered TaunTauns grunted and groaned as they foraged in the snow. “Focus on lightness. Let it flow through you.”

“Easier said than done,” Ben muttered and he turned to the pond. He inhaled deeply and closed his eyes.  _ Help me, _ he thought to the living Force about him.

The Force rushed to meet him, like an eager lover and companion, and wrapped itself around him in a soft cushion that eased the bitter cold around him. Ben surrendered to the feeling of it flowing within him. It felt good, comfortable, to let it absorb all of his attention. He submerged his consciousness in the thrill of it and put his foot out again. This time there were no cracks, no bangs. He put his other foot out and then repeated it again. He felt as if he were walking on air, his smooth footsteps carrying him toward the middle of the thin ice they had found. The warmth of the Light Side suffused him and he relaxed into it as he lost himself in his own focus. He continued to walk on the ice, on a cushion of the Force and air he had never felt before.

“Master Luke? Master Luke! The General would like a report!” C-3PO’s tinny voice penetrated the silence and R-2’s sudden excited beeping through the commlink started to snap Ben out of his own focus.

“3PO, R-2, quiet!” Luke warned but the droid’s beeping was growing more insistent. Something had landed on Hoth according to intel. 

At its loud warning whistle, Ben opened his eyes and lost his focus. His feet met the surface and the cushion of Force and air was gone. He cursed in a holler as the ice cracked beneath his weight and sent him plummeting into the water below. Luke shouted his name as his nephew fell into his armpits in a mixture of slush and ice. He didn’t sink that far and Ben groaned in disgust. 

“I’m fine. I must be on a shallow,” he said between chattering teeth. Already the icy air was penetrating his soaked clothing. “Damn, I was so close.”

He hauled himself out of the water, not surprised to see that his uncle hadn’t moved. Shaking badly, Ben moved quickly to his TaunTaun and pressed up against its woolly hide as he rummaged through its saddle bags still hidden beneath his heaviest coat he had left off when they had begun training. Grabbing the emergency foil sheet from his pack, he wrapped it around his shoulders and turned to see his uncle had started a small fire from the heater they had brought with them. Ben quickly pulled back on his coat overtop the foil sheet and ignored how his hair clung to his face as he tried to shiver his way to warmth. 

Luke eyed him before rolling their tiny portable heater over so that Ben could put his hands around it. “You were close,” he said. “You always stun me, kid, with how fast you pick things up.”

“I can feel a ‘but’ coming,” Ben said between chattering teeth, clutching the heater close.

“You’re impatient. You think it should just all come naturally and sometimes it doesn’t.”

Ben looked out at the cracked ice, at the slush and water lapping at the shoreline. “If this threat is what you say, then I might never be ready.”

“Maybe.” Luke reached out with his robotic hand and picked up the legacy lightsaber from its place next to his own. “Now, let’s start something new. This time?” He grinned and pointed with the lightsaber. “You need to go get this.”

Using the Force, the lightsaber shot out of his hand. Ben watched, shocked, as it soared through the air, over the still solid pieces of the pond. The thermal jets shot up, blocking where it landed from his sight. Ben had the impression that it kept going even beyond that. He was  _ aware _ of it landing, somewhere miles out.

Turning, he glared at his uncle who grinned. “Go get it,” Luke ordered before getting to his feet with a groan. “I’m going to go get something to eat for us from the bunker.”

Ben shivered against the cold and decided then and there he still hated training. Why he just couldn’t be an expert already he’d never know.

* * *

It was only a half-day since landing and Darth Ceria had already decided that she hated Hoth. She hated everything about its plain, rugged landscape. She hated the biting cold that she could feel even through the confines of  _ Shriek _ where she had landed on an outcropping of rocks. She hated that she couldn’t stop shaking from the icy wind. She missed the sterile warmth of the Star Destroyers, the hot arid wildness of Exegol. She just simply hated everything.

Scrubbing at her cheek with a gloved hand, she turned to look at BB-9D who had powered down at her orders. “Smart droid... has the right idea,” she muttered before looking out the window. Her instincts had led her here, to this place that could only breed hostility, and promptly landed her in a spot where there was no life. She hadn’t moved on because those instincts had never proven her wrong before. She had to be here.

Her ship was a pile of black in the rocky outcropping and she was a sitting bantha. The Rebel scum would find her and she’d have to hack her way through them to get to  _ him. _

“Let them,” she whispered. Let her have some violence. She needed that after the long trek here. She would destroy them all in the grand tradition of Darth Vader who never allowed the Rebels much quarter. She knew records of his handling of the Rebels were not exaggerated. He had relished destroying them. 

Which was what made his turn to the light so puzzling to her. She looked at her hand and squeezed it into a fist. How could he give up this power that flowed through her?

However, if she didn’t get out of here soon, she’d freeze to death. Or starve. The Force could provide many things but after her brief stints of starvation she’d vowed to never go hungry again. She still ate and thought like a desert rat after all according to Snoke and she knew he was right. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, go hungry.

Darth Ceria grabbed her cloak and wound it over her shoulders before depressing her levers, popping her cabin open. She crawled out and immediately felt the harsh bite of the wind even through her heavy leather and fabric clothing. Her pants clung to her and she cursed their tight fabric which offered no protection. Her gloves at least protected her hands as she fished out her lightsaber and reattached it to her hip.

She was looking at the damage the sudden landing had caused to her ship when she felt a tingle up her back. Something was coming. Quickly, she turned around on her heel and stared across the cold plains. A small figure was crossing the plains and she squinted through the bright sun to see that it wasn’t a man but a creature running on two legs. A man was riding it. Darth Ceria had been drilled into every creature imaginable about the Galaxy, her grandfather had insisted, but she didn’t recognize this thing. It trotted quickly across the plain toward her and disappeared around a slope, carrying its rider away.

Darth Ceria swung her cloak into a cowl about her shoulders and turned away from her ship, jogging down the side of the hill. The creature had been coming this way. She could head off the rider. Hopefully it would lead her to the Resistance. She didn’t doubt that a beast being ridden like that had some place in their plans. They did have a way with beasts, the records said. Hadn’t they used native beasts on every world?

Lost in thought, she rounded a outcrop corner and skidded to a stop when she saw something sparkling in the snow. Something shifted below her feet and she realized she was standing on a rare patch of frozen water. The ice on Hoth was notoriously thick though and she ignored it as she crossed the ice towards the nearby opening of rocks that led to another slope that headed down toward the plain. She could route off anyone that way and torture them for information.

Except… the silver sparkle caught her eye again and she stopped to look. Her surprise was immediate when she realized that it was a lightsaber. A familiar looking one. She had fought this lightsaber before. Darth Ceria stared at it, nudging it with a toe to be sure that it wasn’t a trap. It only rolled over to expose its depressor and the fine hilt that spoke of another era.

Curious, she reached out to brush her fingers over the silver cylinder of the lightsaber. Almost like a flow of water, Force-driven images rushed over her. Of the dark hull of the Contingency where she had faced the glowing blue of this saber before. Of Ben Solo drinking himself to a stupor in a cantina surrounded by ruffians. Of strange woolly lizards that brayed and had to be soothed to be ridden. Of a kindly older man staring at her and reaching out to pat her shoulder. “ _ Hello, Rey, we’ve been waiting for you,”  _ echoed in her head, a voice she had never heard before. Her eyes snapped open and she took in a deep breath of surprise. Her fingers went to curl about the hilt. 

“I think you’ll find that’s mine.”

The deep rumble of a man’s voice made her spin and rise up to her full height. Clad in a thick coat with a hood framed by thick fur and his face covered from nose to mouth by coverings and goggles, he wasn’t easily recognizable. But then she stretched out with the Force to see what threat this man could be and she felt it. Felt  _ him.  _ Like a beacon drawing her in with his light.

_ “ _ It’s you,” she hissed. Her fingers just closed around the lightsaber but it was ripped from her grip. It spiralled through the air into Ben Solo’s hand and he gave it a gentle twist of the wrist before tossing it in the air.

“So you found me,” he said, voice muffled.

She stared at him and reached for her hip holster for the hilt of her lightstaff. “I told you I’d never stop.”

He reached up and removed his goggles up to his forehead, pushing his mouth covering down. His eyes were sparkling with humour and she hated that so much. How could he find this amusing? “I figured you weren’t a liar, sweetheart,” he said

The sight of the long black scar that striped down his cheek was startling and she took a step back in surprise. 

He gestured up. “Yeah, I’m not gonna be able to compare to your dreams, I’m sure.”

“My dream,” she spat out and she ignited her saber, “is to kill you. It is all I want to do to you.”

His eyes slid to the left side of her saber, still unignited. “Do you?” His head turned on the side a little and he cracked a grin. “Ah. You do.”

The wind below between the, picking up her black cloak and swirling it. To her surprise, he shrugged and reached up back between his shoulder blades, where the lightsaber disappeared. He must have a holster there, she realized.

“I’m not playing around,” she warned.

“Oh, I know you’re not.” He nodded, eyes flicking down. “But I’m not fighting you here. That’s a way for both of us to get killed.”

She slammed her blade to her thigh and ignited the left side. “You _ will _ fight me, Solo. I didn’t come all this way for you to run like a coward.”

He still hadn’t moved very far. “I’m not a coward,” he explained. “Just...not as stupid as a Sith, apparently.”

Stupid. No one had  _ ever _ called her stupid before. Especially Rebel Scum. Especially Jedi. They never dared. She saw red.

“I may be an apprentice,” she said, swirling her blades through the air. The thick snow falling around them careened into the blades and melted before they even made contact with the air about the lightsaber. “But I will destroy you.”

Ben sighed and rolled his eyes up to the sky. “I get that. But I’m not fighting you here.”

She stepped out onto the ice and calculated her next move. He was almost defenseless though that blaster on his thigh could do some damage. She still had the scarring on her hand to prove it. 

He backed up one single step and she saw her opportunity. Gathering the Force beneath her, she leapt for him and somersaulted through the air. Her black cloak flapped about her as she came to a bone crunching landing before him, only feet away. Ben hadn’t moved yet, just watching her. Beneath her half-mask, she grinned. The fool didn’t know what was coming for him. He did have too much of his father in him. 

Then, to her astonishment, he reached for his blaster and shot a single round into the ground. It didn’t touch her, barely made a sound since it was muffled by the snow. Then he reholstered it and stared at her expectantly as if to say “Well?”

Snarling, she took a step forward and raised her blades to strike,.

_ BANG. _

The ice cracked and she screamed as she plummeted under the ice.

* * *

Ben sighed in relief as Darth Ceria went under. He’d been very aware of his surroundings when his TaunTaun had refused to cross this area and he had stretched out fragments of the Force to feel that there was another thermal vent below the surface. Far below but it had made the ice here thin. Ben knelt down and tested the ice at his feet, relieved that it was still solid. He kept his hand dangling close to his blaster and readied himself for what he knew was coming.

She didn’t disappoint.

In a spray of water, Darth Ceria surfaced, her black cloak swirling around her in the water. Ben looked at her and reached up to rub at his chapped lips, considering what to do as she paddled to the edge of the ice. She managed to get some purchase on the ice and hauled herself out. Ben continued to kneel and watch her, not saying a word as he watched her struggle.

“Y-y-you,” she hissed through her mask before choking on the apparatus. Ben moved to his feet as she reached up and unhinged it from about her jaw, letting it fall a little so that she could breathe properly. As he took a few steps back, she made her staggering way up the ice toward him. The closer she came the more he realized the danger she was in. Unlike before when Luke had a heater to wrap himself around, here there was no heater and no warmth to be found. Her lips were already blue and her skin frozen and burnt from the ice of the water. Her clothes stuck to her and he realized then how tiny she was compared to him. It was an uncomfortable reminder of the danger she still held, even frozen like this.

But she raised her lightsaber between them. “I’m n-n-n-not l-l-letting you-u-u-u es-c-c-cape,” she said, teeth chattering.

He was reaching for his blaster again when he realized what was about to happen. He felt it in her shift of weight from one foot to the other, in the way the air slid around them and the slow way her breathing came out of her. Ben watched as her eyes rolled back into her head and she collapsed onto her knees, then her side, her soaked cloak draped over her. 

He stood there for a few minutes to be sure she really was unconscious, that this wasn’t some trick, when he realized she wasn’t moving. Ben knelt back down again by her side and gently turned her to the side so that he could see her face. Her jaw was slack and her skin turning blue from the cold. She wasn’t dressed for Hoth’s cold in her black leather leggings and tunic, and the cloak was so soaked that it wouldn’t protect her. If she didn’t get out of the cold soon, she’d die.

Ben made his decision then.

He was going to leave her. It was simple. Let her die in the snow of exposure. It was the perfect end to a Sith. Every vicious little part of him that wanted vengeance for his father told him to leave her there. She’d die within the hour and all their worries would be gone.

When Ben turned away, the Dark side practically flowed about him in exaltation.

Putting the goggles back over his eyes and lifting his hood back up over his head, he breathed out a long steady stream. “Just get out of here,” he whispered and he quickly headed away from the broken ice. He rounded the outcrop and slid down the slope to where his TaunTaun waited, braying impatiently. Ben stroked down its smelly hide and it turned to nuzzle at him, braying again. The smell of another human was making it nervous. The quicker he left, the better.

He had one foot in the stirrup when Ben felt a sudden flux in the Force. An unfamiliar voice murmured in his ear, “ _ Take her with you, Ben.” _

He rolled his eyes up to the white sky and heaved a sigh that rumbled from deep within. 

The voice was insistent.  _ “She needs you to save her.” _

“I’ll never be able to forgive myself for this if it goes wrong,” Ben muttered.

“ _ The way of the Jedi is compassion.”  _ That voice really wasn’t going to leave him alone and neither would his conscience. 

Shaking his head, Ben turned and trudged back up the slope to where the black-cloaked lump of drenched Sith was lying on the ice and snow. She didn’t move when he knelt beside her and Ben reached out to check her breathing. It was very shallow now and shaking with each exhale. The mask hanging from her cheek bit at his gloved fingers but he ignored it, twisting it off so that the ventilator ties broke before tucking it into his pocket. Risking exposure, he took his glove off and pressed his warm hand to her cheek. He almost yanked it away in surprise when she moaned and leaned into the warm contact. Her teeth were now chattering and her shaking was becoming violent. Ben stared into her face and was struck by not only her gauntness but by her youth. She had to be at least ten years younger than him. Her teeth bared as a violent shudder tore through her and Ben removed his hand to put his glove back on.

“She wouldn’t do this for me,” he argued with the Force he could feel lingering around him.

“ _ That is why you’re different,”  _ that voice said and Ben could have sworn he heard a hint of amusement. Impossible. He had to be losing his mind.

Aware of her cold fragility, he scooped her up in his arms and stood again. Her light weight was made heavier by the thick cloak that dragged between them. But even wet and frozen solid it was better than no protection from the snow starting to drift in with increasing strength. Ben carried her down the slope toward his TaunTaun. She made a sound in his arms and he unconsciously shouldered her closer.

“Knowing you, sweetheart, you’re not going to like this. It’s not exactly dignified,” he muttered to the unconscious girl as he brought her to the beast. It snorted at the smell of her and Ben soothed it by crooning softly. The TaunTaun obediently stayed still as he hefted Darth Ceria onto the back like a sack of goods instead of some Sith warrior, and he vaulted onto the back of the TaunTaun, gathering his reins in one hand as he supported the girl around the waist and kept her close. 

“Let’s get out of here,” he snapped and he clipped his heels into the woolly sides, sending the TaunTaun into a fast trot across the snow back toward Echo Base.


	5. Memories of a Time Not Wasted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With rescuing Darth Ceria, Ben has opened up the Resistance to a possible threat. Luke and Leia experience a moment between them that reveals what happened the night that Luke sent Ben from the temple. Finn meets Rose Tico, a woman draped in grief, as Poe suspects that Holdo is hiding something

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for the love and support this little story is getting, I missed writing fanfic :)

Lifeless and limp.

Not much of a threat.

Still, the sight of her attracted a good chunk of the Resistance members. Ben was barely aware of any of them as they stood in the med bay. It was an old bacta tank, one that he had noticed made his uncle look uncomfortable, but it still worked perfectly well. Even now as it churned and had probes leading out from it, it set off the proper readings. He’d just gotten here in time, according to the med droids in charge.

He watched Darth Ceria float in the bacta tank, lifelessly except for the ventilator moving her chest up and down. Stripped down except for white wrappings about her breasts and the linen shorts, she didn’t look as imposing as she did in her black Sith robes. Her mask had been replaced by a proper ventilator and the wheeze of it performing its tasks was loud enough to let him know that she was comfortable. Or what passed for comfortable in a bacta tank. Ben listened with half an ear to the med droid explaining her condition but he already knew the truth.

She’d live. He felt it. Even despite the tempered glass between them, he envisioned he could feel her actual heartbeat as if it were his own. The effect across the Force was... _ devastating. _ Ben shifted and reached up to touch the scar she had given him, the scar that still was patched together above his eye and down his cheek. When he touched it, he could remember how it had felt to have her vulnerable beneath his hands and yet not do more than put her on a TaunTaun and save her life.

He remembered Poe and his mother’s matching looks.  _ What were you thinking, Ben? _

“You know I just don’t get it,” Poe said suddenly from where he leaned against the wall. He stepped forward and peered into the bacta tank. “Why are we keeping a First Order commander alive? She’d see us dead first rather than help us live.” 

At a table, Leia looked up from her reading of the latest plans for Echo Base. “Because we are not the First Order, Dameron.”

“Good point,” Poe agreed after a long moment’s pause and he looked at Finn. “How’re you doing?”

Finn had been the first to help Ben pull his unconscious cargo off the TaunTaun and for his trouble had nearly had his hand broken when she’d lashed out. Luckily, Luke had been there and taken advantage of the woman’s weakness to force her to sleep. It had only made Finn a bit more starry eyed around Luke even though he deeply resented that he’d been attacked.

“Nearly lost my hand to a woman just trying to help her but yeah I’m fine. Just fine.”

The droid was still droning on and on to Ben who hadn’t moved an inch in the past ten minutes. Apparently the droid had decided that since Ben had brought her in that he was therefore in charge of her. He didn’t really hear the droid or its endless explanations about her best care. He slipped in and out of awareness, his eyes riveted on Darth Ceria’s face. The idea of vengeance came fleetingly to his mind. He could unplug her ventilator, remove the constant flow of bacta, let her drown in her own fluids, see her dead with just a flick of his hand. Be easy to. The Force would manipulate the dials and switches and it would be seen as a mistake. No one would miss her.

But as quick as the thought came it was gone. That momentary flash of darkness, a vein that struck deep within him, bubbled up and then settled. A constant reminder that he wasn’t the good Jedi his uncle wanted him to be. 

A strong and gentle hand came down on his shoulder and he looked down at his uncle. Luke’s bright eyes were worried and his sure grip squeezed gently. “You okay? You seem quieter than normal,” he said.

“Fine. Just thinking.” Ben heard the droid remark on her recovery time. “Wait, what was that?”

“The estimated recovery time,” the droid repeated with the air of being annoyed by the interruption of its speech, “is three days.”

“That’s pretty quick,” Luke said. “Last time I survived the cold it was a while.”

“Her body is regenerating quickly,” the droid said. “There has been some interesting notes made upon her chart. I did give it to Captain Solo to read.”

Ignoring the honorific, Ben turned away and met Luke’s eyes. “Sith manipulation,” Luke told him in a lowered voice. “I’d bet my life on it.”

“As anyone considered this might be some sort of master plan?” Finn asked suddenly and they all looked at him. He nervously chuckled but held fast anyway. “I mean, it would make so much sense, wouldn’t it? Some sort of big thing they’ve got planned to infiltrate the Resistance.”

Ben stared at him. “The First Order’s master plan is to send Snoke’s apprentice to Hoth, threaten me, then fall into an ice water pond, submerged in subzero temperatures, almost not get rescued, then attack the nearest Resistance member, just so that she can try to get into the Resistance?” He shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

Finn’s cheeks, chapped with windburn, seemed to redden at Ben’s sarcasm. “Well I mean, you put it like that and it doesn’t sound right.”

“Ben, be nice to Finn,” Poe said and he jostled his friend with an arm. “I’m with Ben on this though, Finn. I don’t think there’s some deeper plan here. I think she just had bad luck.”

“So what’s the plan then?” Finn asked, not about to be deterred. “We just pretend she’s not a First Order commander out to kill us all?”

There was no arguing with that point but it was Leia who sighed. “We have considered that.”

“She’s in the custody of Master Skywalker,” Poe told him. “It’ll be up to him to decide.”

Luke’s gaze was almost sleepy in his amusement. “I’m so lucky,” he said with his typical dryness. Ben shot him a look to see that his uncle’s eyes were on Darth Ceria. “I think we should see who she really is, don’t you all? Before we make up our mind on what to do with her?” Luke shrugged. “She might make a valuable hostage.”

* * *

After the dismissal from the med bay, Admiral Holdo commandeered most of Leia and Luke’s attention, leaving Ben on his own and Poe and Finn to occupy their time with fixing up BB8 so that he operated Poe’s craft easier. Poe kept a careful watch on Leia’s quarters though and he had one ear to the ground to learn what was going on. It wasn’t long before Holdo left Leia’s room after their usual conference. Leaning close, Poe gestured for Finn to be quiet as he listened in to the conversation Holdo was having with her own guard. She was to take one of their fleet cruisers to the other side of the system to await further orders. The tall Gatalentan slipped by the troops and began to bark orders at her own squadron of men. They snapped to attention quickly and trotted out to their own ships.

Interesting, Poe thought. Watching from his place on the stacks of cartons, he swallowed down his rations with a swig of ice water. “There’s something off about her,” he said to Finn who was straddling the nose of an X-Wing.

“What makes you say that?” Finn asked as he tinkered with a wire.

“Not sure. Just a feeling.” 

Finn snorted. “Careful with that feeling business. You sound like a Jedi.”

“That would make you happy, wouldn’t it?” Poe countered. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you hanging around Master Skywalker.”

Finn stammered. “I just...I find it fascinating. The idea that those feelings you can get, about people and things...what if they all meant something, right?”

Poe rolled his eyes. “Then I’d be in trouble with every lover I’ve ever had,” he said with a wink. Finn flustered a little and rolled his own eyes playfully, a silly smile on his face.

“You two done hanging around?” a soft feminine voice demanded, a voice as hard as steel. They both turned to see a petite woman staring up at them, her dark eyes flashing with annoyance in her elfin face. Finn stared at her, barely able to help himself. There was fire in her eyes that had nothing to do with admiration for Poe Dameron and everything to do with wanting them out of her way.

“Tico, what’s got your uniform in a twist?” Poe asked as he dismounted from the carton stack. He noticed Finn staring and coughed. “Uh, Finn? This is Rose Tico. Rose? Finn.”

Rose’s eyes flicked to Finn and something about her softened, just a little. “The stormtrooper,” she breathed. Then she lost the wispiness in her voice and cleared her throat. “I need to look at your engine, Poe. You wanted some alterations to it, didn’t you?”

He nodded. “Yeah, so?”

“So get out of my way and you’ll get them,” she ground out between perfect teeth. Finn blinked at her abruptness and glanced at Poe. Poe was grinning and he winked down at Rose.

“All yours, Tico.” He reached out to tweak her cheek but she swatted him off. It made him laugh as he reached out and patted Finn’s shoulder. “Come on, Finn, let’s go see how Master Skywalker’s new pet is looking.”

As they walked away, Finn turned his head to look at the small woman climbing up Poe’s X-Wing. “Who is she?”

“One of our best engineers and mechanics. She can fly a mean ship too when she sets her mind to it,” Poe said with his usual pride. He did love his own command unit with a brotherly fierceness. He stopped and lowered his voice. “But listen. She, uh, she lost her sister in the Battle above Yavin IV last month. One of our bomber units went down. Took out a star destroyer but not without losing our pilot. Paige was...well….Finn, they were close. I don’t see Rose smile anymore and she used to smile all the time.” Poe headed off down the aisle but not before tossing over his shoulder. “I think she feels like no one understands her anymore.”

Finn looked back at Rose and gave a wistful smile. “I can guess how that feels.”

* * *

The meeting with Amilyn Holdo had gone as expected. She’d taken Leia’s orders to improvise as needed to heart and the General knew that she could trust her friend to do what was right. Now Leia sat at her table, staring at her brother as he paced before her like a caged TaunTaun. He was grumbling and grousing about nothing at all. Sometimes, Leia considered, she forgot her brother had a quick temper when he was pressed. The business with Ben bringing in what Luke believed was a Sith was enough to cause his carefully cultivated calm to fray. 

When he turned around to pace a new groove into her floor, Leia held up a hand. 

“Stop pacing and tell me what you think is going on?” she asked him and Luke shot her a look over his shoulder. “You think Ben is…”

“I think Ben did what he thought was right. But not without some struggle, I’m sure.” Luke sighed and ran his hand through his freshly trimmed beard. He turned toward his sister and put his hand on the table between them, tapping the hard surface a few times. “There’s nothing between them but hate, Leia. That can be so dangerous in his training if we move forward with it.”

“You hated Vader once, didn’t you? As much as you feared him,” Leia asked astutely. Luke winced in memory and opened his mouth to defy it but Leia glared at him. “Don’t try to dodge this, Luke. I remember you telling me how you trained, focussed only on the day you would face him. Then, after some time, it changed. You believed in his redemption. Is it possible this could happen to Ben? With this girl?”

“No, I don’t think it will,” Luke said and his honesty made his voice shake a little. “Ben’s not me, Leia.”

It hung between them, the truth of it. Ben Solo was not Luke Skywalker. Nor was he Han Solo or Leia Organa. He was someone that was the best and worst of all three of them, in his own way, while still maintaining some startling differences. Ben was his own man and he was wildly unpredictable. They had not walked the same path, nor shared the same tragedies. It was why he had not become a Jedi nor a Senator, despite the wishes of his family. Han had had the right of it, raising his son a little wild and a little uncertain. But that uncertainty could cost them dearly. Luke had failed once as his master and Leia knew the truth of that moment in a way not even Han had known.

_ Darkness and terror would come from this sleeping boy, Luke thought as he stared down at him. The small hut had become Ben Solo’s retreat from the other Padawans who had taken to teasing him lately. Ben was going through yet another growth spurt and was all awkwardness, all legs and knobby knees and big ears. Ben had taken to his hut every night and meditated. He was growing stronger, day by day, but he was uncertain and untrained in controlling every facet of his immense powers. He separated himself both for the sake of the other students and for his own sanity. _

_ It was where Luke knew he would find him when those dark visions of a possible future had overwhelmed him during his own meditation that night. A quiet boy, lying on his side, unaware of his uncle’s arrival. A boy who trusted in his family. A boy Luke wasn’t sure he knew anymore. _

_ Even now, Luke’s hand went to his lightsaber, ready to ignite. Ready to strike. The darkness that was surrounding Ben was too much. Maybe it would end if it was extinguished now. Ended now. If not, Ben would destroy all Luke loved. _

_ “It needs to end here,” Luke whispered. He unhitched his lightsaber and held it balanced in his robotic hand. He stared at Ben. He saw visions of Vader in his head, of Ben kneeling before a dark lord and taking his vows to the Dark side of the Force. _

_ But then he remembered...his love for this boy. This nephew who was quickly becoming the son Luke knew he would never have. This boy who would find small creatures and heal them before releasing them back into the wild. This boy who cheated at card games to win extra rations from the other students. This boy had so much potential that he sparked jealousy even in Luke to realize that one day he would be stronger and more powerful than any Jedi before him. This boy who sometimes could be seen looking off into the distance, who spoke of ‘missing something’ and not knowing what it was. A strange boy on the verge of manhood but still a boy just longing for the love and attention of his family. _

_ Luke hitched his lightsaber back onto his belt and knelt to Ben’s side. Reaching out, he shook him awake and heard Ben’s sleepy murmurs in that odd hitched tone of a boy whose voice had newly broken. “Uncle Luke?” Ben asked, slipping into old habits in his sleepiness. _

_ “We need to talk,” Luke said. “And it is time we realized the truth, Ben.” Their eyes met. “You belong with your family.” _

_ That caused Ben to jerk up into his seat and stare wide-eyed at his uncle. “You don’t think I can be a Jedi.” _

_ “I think you could be the greatest there is,” Luke admitted. “But not yet. You need others to train you, not me. I’m sending you home.” _

“That day, I think I broke some confidence that child had in himself,” Luke said to his sister. “He still acts as if the Force is some trick he learned in his youth.”

“So you think training him isn’t worth it?” Leia asked. Her eyes, wrinkled at the corners, narrowed suspiciously.

“No. I think it is worth it but once again I’m not sure if I can.” Luke had taken a seat across from her and he bowed his head. “I’m not sure I want to.”

Leia stared at him.

_ The Millennium Falcon had only taken off just hours ago with Han retrieving his only son...when the explosions began. In the gardens at night, lost in a meditative trance, Luke turned mid-step and was met by a wave of heat and debris. It tossed him through the air and sent him into a deep vat of darkness where even unconscious he heard the screams of his students as they were slaughtered about him. _

_ When he came to, R2 stood by him, whistling in concern that once again he was being left behind. Luke knelt beside the droid, one hand on the blue dome to reassure R2 that he wasn’t being left, and stared into the burning remains of his temple. At the fried carcasses of his students lying strewn about. _

_ And he knew guilt, because the tears he wept were not just in grief. They were in relief that he had saved a boy he had loved more than the others. He had saved a fragment of the very thing he had sought to build. _

“What happened that night wasn’t your fault,” Leia said softly, reaching out to take her brother’s hand in hers. “The investigation my people conducted after revealed it was Snoke, Luke. The First Order executed your students, not you.”

“They followed me blindly,” Luke whispered. “And if it had been just hours earlier, you would have lost your son.” His blue eyes sought her dark ones. “Would you have forgiven me that?”

“You’re my brother,” she answered. “I forgive you so much for all that happened. But I refuse to think about losing Ben. We didn’t lose him then, Luke, and we won’t lose him now.”

“If he loses control, Leia, we could lose him,” Luke warned. “The more I train him, the…”

“More chance he has,” Leia finished for him with a force to her voice that could have turned water to ice. “He spent years with his father and those were the best we could do for him. But now he needs to be ready and you are my best hope. You’re my only hope.”

“Help me, Obi-wan Kenobi?” he teased half-heartedly. That earned him a wry look from his sister. 

“We aren’t so young anymore, Luke,” she said. “It is time we train the next generation to take over for us or all is lost. They must walk on without us if necessary”

He was saved from answering by the door buzzing open. R2 and BB8 came breezing through, blurting out expletives in droid. Luke and Leia stared at them, not comprehending at all until Poe swung in with Finn on his heels.

“We need you. Your pet project just woke up three days early,” he said. At Luke and Leia’s curious look, he swallowed. “And man, is she mad.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What can I say? I ship it all.


	6. Kindness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not above kindness, Ben watches as Darth Ceria emerges from sedation.

Sedation had been the key to subduing her rage. The moment that Darth Ceria had woken up in the bacta tank she had panicked and struggled violently against her constraints. No one had known what to do until a med droid, acting on directive, pumped her IV full of sedative and the girl had sagged down quietly to float in the tank harmlessly. The entire squad that had witnessed her violent struggles had been relieved. The sedative gave her a chance to heal and calmed her so much that most days she barely managed a sleepy look outside the tank. The ventilator blocked her sounds and she would often fall back deep asleep.

Three days passed before the med droid announced she could be taken out of the tank. The droids had handled her exclusively, since no human or alien doctor wished to touch her. It was almost as if they feared she would contaminate them with her First Order aura. The aura of supreme violence. There was a wildness now to her that hadn’t been there before, a wildness that couldn’t be repressed any longer. Like a feral child who had just worn a thin veneer of control, Darth Ceria’s struggles in the tank had revealed just who she might be to those smart enough to watch for it.

The girl was  _ dangerous. _

Ben considered all of this, all of her, from where he sat in the makeshift prison they had constructed out of two old storage rooms and a heater. They’d found a pair of stun cuffs and bound her tight though Luke had known they wouldn’t do much. It was more for show, to keep the Resistance calm at the constant presence of a Dark side user.

Staring at her, Ben wondered if perhaps he was wrong. Was she truly a Sith? There had been something less...just less about her. Something less controlled. The energy flooding off of her was a confused mess of darkness and Force sensitivity. Not a little unlike Finn’s energy, though his was dominated by more light. Lifting one leg up, Ben reclined back into the wall and propped his arm on his knee as he stared at the sleeping girl. The area was cold, the heater barely making an impact, but he had dressed light for the occasion. He had to move fast around her, after all.

Darth Ceria woke slowly, the sedative dulling her senses. There was no panic as she woke up and it was a relief to see it. At first she drew into herself then stretched out her arms and legs, rather like a loth-cat stretching, and Ben tilted his head on the side to watch. As her eyes blinked open, he was struck by the utter innocence about her in that moment.

Then he remembered his father and he hardened himself against the thought. 

Her eyes sleepily wandered over the room before landing on Ben. He watched her leap back, as far as the cuffs allowed, and press her back into the wall. The medical gown was nothing against the constant draft of Hoth’s underground bunker. He said nothing as she tried to speak only for her teeth to chatter so badly that she couldn’t manage. She snatched up her blanket and pulled it across her chest and up to her chin as if to protect herself from him.

“Ben Solo,” she managed after a long awkward moment. 

“Darth Ceria,” he said.

She relaxed a little and looked around. She shook her head and raised a hand to her temple, pressing against it. Without her mask, her voice was still sweetly accented by something almost from the Core but there was a deceptive softness about it that hid her strength. Darth Ceria’s eyes fixed on him and he was surprised. There was less red ringing her eyes, the faint yellow tinge more subdued.

Something had  _ changed  _ about her. He could feel it as acutely as he could feel the cold draft from the cracks in the wall.

“Where am I?” she asked.

Ben didn’t move out of his relaxed pose. “The Resistance.”

“Let me guess,” she said as she sat forward. Her eyes tracked over the walls. “This is where you ransom me back to the First Order in order to gain intel?”

“That would have made more sense,” he admitted, “but no. We haven’t decided what to do with you.”

She opened her mouth to respond but lifted her other hand to her temple and groaned. “How long was I out for?”

“Three days,” he said, “give or take. You were sedated.”

Her eyes flicked to him. “Did you or any others…”

“You were handled by droids. No one else wanted to bother with you,” he said.

To his surprise, she flinched before recovering with a smile that showed him a girlishness he hadn’t noticed before. “Not even you, hmm?”

“I already beat you once. I have nothing to prove by being foolish,” Ben answered.

“Beat me? You didn’t beat me. This wasn’t a sparring challenge. You made the mistake of letting me live. Both now and before.”

Ben smirked. “Let’s hope I don’t live to regret it, hmm?”

She snarled at him, returning to her previous impression of a Sith wild cat, and Ben was relieved. He didn’t need to be confused about her.

The door hissed opened open and she leapt back as BB8 rolled through, balancing a tray on his dome head. “Easy, it’s just a droid,” soothed Ben with a grin.

“Could be a torture droid for all I know,” she snapped. “Hidden purposes are all the rage in the Resistance, right?”

Ben arched a brow and looked at BB8. The tiny droid whistled at him and he smiled. “She’s just frightened, BB8, don’t take it personally.”

“I am not frightened!” she snapped. “I’m…”

Ben ignored her sputtering as BB8 rolled forward and deposited the tray on the table between them. “Thanks BB8. Go find my uncle and bring him here.”

The droid’s head revolved around to look at Darth Ceria once more and he let out a series of beeps and whistles. Before Ben could answer, it was the girl who answered, “Oh I’m a threat all right.”

BB8 whirred nervously and rolled backward in a rush out the door. It hissed closed and they were alone again. Ben didn’t move toward the tray, his dark eyes on her. His fingers rubbed together absently. His mother wasn’t above some kindness even to the First Order and it was conventional to treat all prisoners of war decently, at least for the Resistance. The rations weren’t much, some dehydrated bread and a vitamin bar. He’d had better. 

Ben could see her confusion and her fear even though she was eyeing the tray hungrily. There were faint lines of starvation about her, as if she hadn’t eaten in days, and a sense that she had never really eaten much before. The way she eyed the tray...it reminded him of some of his uncle’s old students that had been plucked up from the poorer planets, where food was scarce. Almost like a scavenger.

“You can eat it. It’s not poisoned,” he said.

“I don’t know that,” she said even as she crept closer toward the hunk of bread, coming to the edge of the cot. 

He sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “We wouldn’t kill, you know, after using up a good amount of bacta to bring you back from death. Don’t be stupid.”

She bristled and he looked at her again. She opened her mouth to say something but closed it abruptly as if the honesty in his words clicked in her head. Nodding she snatched the tray up and retreated back to the safety of the wall. She lost all pretense of a refined lady then, stuffing hunks of bread into her mouth. Ben watched, fascinated, but she still didn’t seem to care that he was seeing this side to her. Darth Ceria ate as if this was a meal she had longed for. She devoured the bread like a vacuum and then started on the vitamin bar.

Her eyes met his and he saw a flicker of embarrassment in her eyes before she began to nibble on the tough chunk of food. 

“You’re feeding me,” she said around a mouthful.

There were crumbs about her mouth that another woman having might have been endearing.

“We are,” he said.

“Why? If our positions were reversed, I’d starve you for days to get what I wanted from you,” she snapped.

“Really? What would you want from me?” he asked with a casual grin that made her bristle up a little. 

“Why are you feeding me?” she repeated.

“Because I’m not you,” Ben said.

That seemed to stun her and she took a long moment to chew and swallow the mouthful of the bar she had taken. Darth Ceria’s face, usually so marred by her own darkness, took on an odd prettiness as she considered his words. Without her layers between them, without the half-mask to truly hide her expressions, it was interesting to watch her process information.

Then her lips took on a cunning curve. “Why would you help me when I killed your father?”

Ben’s fingers, held loose before, curled into a fist and she noticed it immediately. “I’m doing what is right.”

“That’s a weakness. One I’m going to exploit,” she said with a smarmy grin. “You won’t kill your enemy? How  _ nice and noble  _ of you _.” _

“Sweetheart, if you think I’m a nice man then you really don’t know me at all,” he drawled though she’d managed to put him on edge easily by calling this a weakness. He stayed relaxed though and he knew it was putting her on edge.

“I do know you though, somehow,” she said with a bewildered whispery tone. “Why do I know you?”

_ I know you too, _ Ben wanted to say.  _ And I wish I knew why. _

The door hissed open, saving him from responding, and the man who came through sent her scuttling back into the corner as far as she could before standing. She held up the bar between them and glared at Luke Skywalker. Her posture became tense and she looked ready to launch herself at him.

Ben didn’t move, watching the interaction curiously as his uncle picked up a chair from the corner and set it down. He sat with a flourish of his robes, all regal and noble Jedi Master, and he glanced at Ben. One blue eye slid closed in a wink before his attention went back to Darth Ceria.

“If I’m right, you’re the one who’s been hunting me,” he said. “I thought I should come to you this time. See what I’m up against.”

“If I had my lightsaber, you’d be dead before you sat down,” she snapped.

“A charmer,” Luke said, glancing at Ben in an assessing way. “Though I can see why you didn’t kill her.”

Ben flushed at the implication and Darth Ceria nervously looked between the two of them. “Is this to be an interrogation?” she demanded. 

“Does it need to be?” Luke asked. “You could just tell us what we need to know.”

She smirked. “A Jedi mind trick won’t work on me, old man.”

“Old man?” Luke mouthed at Ben who grinned at him. “Ben tells me that you attacked him but there’s no signs of the First Order in our system yet. A recon squadron notwithstanding.”

Her eyes darted to Ben. “So?”

“Means you’re acting on your own. Even Snoke wouldn’t let his apprentice operate alone like this,” he said. “Knowing him, he’d have you accompanied by a legion. Or by the Knights of Ren.”

“You think I can’t handle myself?” Darth Ceria snarled and she got to her feet, the tray clambering between them. Her hand lashed out and she squeezed with the Force.

Unharmed, Luke stared back at her with a brow raised. “Really?”

Nonplussed by his lack of fear, she glumly put her hand back down. “What are you planning on doing with me?” she demanded after a moment.

“We’re going to keep you here, out of the way, out of trouble,” Luke said and he looked at Ben. “Ben is to be your personal guard.”

She sneered at him. “Him?”

“Him. If you step a toe out of line, he will take care of you.”

“Take care of me?” she repeated. “I will kill all of you the minute I get a chance.”

“You might try,” Luke admitted. “But right now there are legions of Resistance between you and freedom. Not to mention many people who would love to see you dead for the harm you’ve done.”

“What is your master plan, Jedi?” she sniped. “Going to see if you can save my soul and bring me back to the light?”

Luke gave her a pitying look. “No, Darth Ceria, I won’t do that. I learned long ago that you can only save those who want to be saved.”

She recoiled a little as if he had slapped her and her eyes went to Ben again who met her gaze steadily. Growling beneath her breath, she turned her back on them and Luke sighed, turning to his nephew.

“Keep a close eye on her and report any changes. The droid will be here shortly to be sure she is healed properly.”

Ben blew out a sigh. “If I have to. I was going to work on the Falcon for a while. She needs repairs.”

He noticed that Darth Ceria actually turned her head a little and he sensed her interest. 

“That can wait a little until we know what we plan on doing with her,” Luke admonished. 

“So what do I do till then?” Ben asked.

“Keep her out of trouble. Shouldn’t be that hard, right?” Luke asked though his eyes sparkled a little at the look on his nephew’s face. “Be good practice for later.”

“Later?” Ben asked. “What do you mean, ‘later’?”

Luke stood up from his seat and dusted off his robes. “I’ll see you in an hour or so, Ben. Make sure to keep her well guarded.”

Ben watched him leave and Darth Ceria turned as well. After a long moment, they looked at one another. Ben took her in from head to toe and finally gave her a grim smile.

“How are you at sabacc?” 


	7. The First Force Bond

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben and Darth Ceria experience their first real bonded moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No no, I didn't forget this story. I've been working on my original stories and novels, and had a release date recently. So this story had to be shelved as I worked on other things.

Ben sat in his private quarters, struggling to relax while he stretched with one long leg extended before him with the other tucked up close to his body. The ice cold of the floor and the draft from the ventilation shaft barely penetrated his body, let alone his thoughts. He stared and thought, thought until he thought a hole in the galaxy, and thought so more. His thoughts scrambled furiously and out of order and he exhaled sharply in irritation, trying to slip into a meditative state and failing. In between his fingers, he rolled a pair of golden dice back and forth. He hoped that some of its luck would rub off and give him some insight that he desperately needed.

It had been over two weeks since they had taken Snoke’s apprentice captive. Two weeks of hearing her rage inside the cell with her impatience to be let out. He’d only gone in a few times to try to see if he could get information from her but she’d stonewalled him and the others. Torture her or let her go, she had argued with Luke, kill her even. Luke had snorted and rolled his eyes. “Only a Sith deals in absolutes,” he had quoted at Ben when his nephew had been alarmed at her apparent willingness to die. At first, Ben had thought she might fall for his ‘let’s play a game’ the first time around but she hadn’t. Every time he had tried to get information from her, Darth Ceria had managed to completely throw him off. She’d simply thrown the Force up against him like a brick wall and pounded on it with her hands as if to punctuate her point to him. If it hadn’t been for their strange connection, she might have succeeded in overwhelming him with her tidal use of the Force. But as Ben had a hard time dominating her through the Force, so did she have with him. He had tried to probe her mind but been promptly repulsed. And in turn, she had tried it on him once or twice and received the same treatment. They were, in effect, stuck in a stalemate.

Luke had taken over watching the girl when it became clear that Ben’s presence aggravated her. No one knew why she reacted so much to him. His sheer presence seemed to set her off. Not that Ben cared. He did his best not to care. All he saw when he looked in those strange eyes was the reflection of his father’s death. A death that he couldn’t avoid any longer. 

The gnaw of grief burrowed its way in his chest and chomped down harder than before. Ben closed his eyes and took a deep, steadying breath against it. But there it was again. His father’s shocked expression as the bolt burrowed into him, the blood, the anguish of the moment. Ben felt it all again as if it was happening to him in real time and he desperately wanted it to be gone. He needed for it to be gone. He couldn’t face that girl any longer without having some semblance of control and he knew how dangerous it would be if he did.

_ “Trust the Force,”  _ he could hear his uncle saying to him during a relaxed training session the other night but Ben had refused. He had blocked it off for a little while, not understanding its apparent deception. If the Force was there for him, why had it connected him to this girl? Why had it let him watch his father die like that? The victim of a girl who had killed his father with a simple twist of her hand? A girl who felt no remorse whatsoever?

Disturbed, he rolled the dice about his palm and wondered a little more.

It happened with a strange sound and a numbing sensation. One he recognized only vaguely. It was a vacuum of pressure that sucked all the sound from the air around him. The whirring whoosh around him echoed in hollow reverberation before settling on a point and Ben turned his scarred face toward it. He wasn’t sure what to expect. 

And he nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw Darth Ceria sitting across from him.

That she looked equally startled didn’t register in his brain as he reached for his blaster in the next moment, switching it on stun and pointing it at her. She raised a hand to stop him but the shot careened into her before echoing harmlessly off the wall behind her. Realizing she wasn’t stunned, Darth Ceria smirked and tightened her hand into a fist. 

“You will release my bonds and let me go.”

Nothing.

Ben couldn’t hide the slight smirk in response to her audacity at trying a mind trick on him after all this time. But it didn’t explain why she was here, seated before him on the floor. Her space-pale face was upturned and her yellow tinged eyes flickered over him in disgust. Or what he assumed was disgust. As they stared at one another, nothing seemed to register that they were here together. Mere feet apart. He looked away, thinking it might be a mirage, but when he looked back she was still there. Still glaring pure murder at him.

“You’re not doing this,” Ben said in realization that this was a Force projection. “The effort would kill you. You’re good but you’re not that good.”

“You’re not doing this either,” she said, “You’re too weak.”

He started to lose his temper at her deliberately baiting tone but he took in a deep breath and decided to default to a more analytical mindset. His uncle would have been proud, his father would have been disappointed. After all, here was something new happening. How could he not explore it a little?

Uncomfortably reminded of his father, Ben stared at her. It looked as if she were sitting in the same room. “Can you see my surroundings?” he asked, wondering if she could see his things. He didn’t want her to know any personal details about him. Not his well-used and equally well hidden calligraphy set, nor where he kept his lightsaber and his clothing. Ben quickly took the string the dice hung from and flicked it back around his neck, tucking the makeshift necklace back into his coat before she could get a good look at them. Deliberately trying to look casual, he looked around and flexed his fingers at his side. Save for that quick movement, he didn’t move from his relaxed pose.

“I’m going to make you pay for what you’ve done,” she promised, spitting like a loth-cat.

“I can’t see yours,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken, eyes still wandering over his room. His eyes lazily came back to her face. “Just you.” He shook his head at the vibration teeming the air about them. It was the Force, he knew it. It had to be. “This is something else…”

Darth Ceria bared her teeth and rose to her feet, coming closer toward him with long, sure strides until the tips of her boots met the bottom of his. She gave his boot a nudge with her toe but Ben didn’t move. He just tilted his head back and stared up at her thoughtfully. 

“Almost as if we’re connected more than we thought,” he finished.

“I’d rather be chained to a Hutt than connected to some scruffy smuggler bastard,” she snarled.

Ben smirked. “I could arrange that,” he promised. “I know a few Hutts. Comes with the family business.”

“Oh I know all about your family business,” Darth Ceria said, shifting from heel to toe in a rocking motion. “Wasn’t your mother a senator? Your father was a smuggler? Both of them were Rebels. They took countless lives.”

Ben shrugged. “Families aren’t perfect.”

“Of course not,” she said with a purr to her Core accent. “They abandoned you. Showing the true nature of Rebels. They’re cowards.”

That she knew that much was an uncomfortable reminder that he needed to tread very carefully around her. Ben managed to still look relaxed, shrugging a shoulder up. “That’s rich coming from a First Order lackey.”

That made her hand raise and she crunched her fingers into a fist. “Shut up!” she shouted. That his casual insult had affected her so much was a surprise but Ben didn’t move though she was trying to force-choke him. There was no feeling of power coming from her now. Through whatever this connection was, it didn’t allow her to use the Force upon him at all. Ben smiled and leaned back in his seat a little, his spine pressing into the wall. His dark hair flopped into his eyes and he lifted a hand to scratch at his scruffy cheek.

“So let me guess…” he began. “You think you’re still in control.”

“I am in control,” Darth Ceria said. “You will give me everything I need and then I will kill you.”

There was something strange in the way she said that, a half-heartedness that didn’t quite fit with the ferocity in her expression. “I don’t think you want to kill me,” Ben said. He had to smile a little crookedly at that. “But don’t get too attached, sweetheart. You’re not my type.”

That earned him a flinch that he hadn’t expected either. Interesting.

“I’d rather…”

“Save it,” Ben said. “I’m still trying to figure out how you got here.”

“I don’t care how,” Darth Ceria said. “All I know is that this locking me up is giving me time to plan.”

“Plan?” Ben prompted. “Something evil, I bet.”

She opened her mouth to answer but the door behind her suddenly opened. Luke popped his head through and frowned. “What are you sitting on the floor for?” his uncle asked, apparently unaware of Darth Ceria standing before him. Ben’s eyes darted to her.

“Skywalker?” she asked with venom oozing from her voice.

Ben turned his head to look at the mirror in the corner. There was no reflection of Darth Ceria there, no slight young woman standing before him. When he looked back around, she was gone and it was only him and his uncle. Luke gave him an expectant look and Ben cleared his throat.

“Just thinking, that’s all,” he said.

“Don’t think too hard. Might bust something,” Luke said as he came into the room and slid the door shut behind him. “I’ve got an idea what to do with that Sith.”

“Is she a Sith?” Ben asked. “I’m not so sure. Maybe we shouldn’t call her that.”

Luke frowned. “Where’s this coming from?” he questioned.

Ben shook his head. “Nevermind. Just…I think I’m overthinking things.”

“We need to do some training but I don’t want to leave that Darth Ceria here unguarded. It’s been a week. Even I’m not cruel enough to keep someone out of the sun.”

Ben tried to draw his uncle’s conclusions fast and for an annoying reason felt his heart banging harder in his chest. “You can’t possibly be meaning to bring her with us.”

“She’s still weak from the exposure. We’ll take her to the open area. She has nowhere to go from there.” Luke shrugged and grinned in a boyish way that was pure mischief. “Maybe I want to see what she can do.”

“And if she kills us both?” Ben asked.

“If she can kill us both, the Resistance is in more trouble than you can know,” Luke said seriously. “We need to see what we might be up against, especially if Snoke has another like her in reserve.”

Ben sighed. “So you want to take her out in chains and parade her around the camp?”

“We’ll head down to our training ground with her. What could it hurt?” Luke said with a bit of innocence. Ben narrowed his gaze on his uncle.

“Does my mother know you’re doing this?” he asked. “More importantly, why are you doing this, really?”

“Leia doesn’t need to know everything I do,” Luke protested with a grin. “Come on. You never turned down a challenge before.”

Despite his suspicions, Ben had to admit his uncle had a point. There was no way he didn’t want to see what happened when Darth Ceria was taken out to the training grounds with them as a prisoner. He had a feeling it might be more interesting than he could guess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your encouragement, guys, it's great fun!


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